Symbolism in Conrad

One particularly critical symbol to understand if an individual is to understand the psychology behind Conrad’s Heart of Darkness is the symbolism of the Europeans juxtaposed with the savage cannibals. The narrator Marlow is very surprised by the reversal of European and African roles and his initial illusion of European social and moral supremacy is ultimately shattered. Europeans like Kurtz and the manager seem to show little restraint and adherence to a moral code and seem to metaphorically cannibalize the land for natural resources while providing minimal compensation for those force to work with them. While starved to death by their minuscule pay and supposedly corrupted by their savage nature in the Heart of Darkness, the native cannibals show restraint in not eating each other or their European companions to support a human necessity. This European lack of the restraint for trivial goods juxtaposed against the African upholding of moral dignity dispels Marlow’s reality providing a dreamlike reality.

Heart of Darkness Blog #2

In Heart of Darkness, Marlow begins to tell his story by first describing the relationship between the colonization of a different civilization. In describing the colonization of England by the Roman empire, Conrad does a good job setting up the premise for the rest of the story and thus Marlow's journey to the Congo. Initially viewed as a savage land, England was colonized and transformed for a place of brutish ambition into a land of wealth and human triumph. Yet, Marlow notes that England was not settled peacefully and it was only through senseless violence that England was transformed. Conrad perhaps includes this as an analogy to events that will take place further throughout the story in the Congo. Perhaps the colonization of the Congo was a much more violent and nonsensical experience then Marlow would have hoped.

Tone

Tone is a fairly important tool that poets and author’s utilize to convey emotion, setting, and meaning. Often times, tone emphasizes the word choice and meaning of the piece and is useful in this regard. For example, in Out Out by Robert Frost, Frost uses tone and tone shifts to shock the reader and to put the reader through a series of different emotions. Whilst Frost begins the poem with a lighthearted look at a family preparing dinner whilst a boy is out sawing wood. However, the tone of the poem radically shifts halfway through as the boy’s hand is cut off by the saw and eventually he dies. Without tone and tone shifts, the poem would be very static and the boy’s death would have no emotional weight on the reader. Consequently, tone is one of the most important characteristics for defining a work’s emotion and meaning. Tone is the trait the engages the reader in the work, and contains the emotion that play is trying to portray.

Blog #6: Imagery

Imagery is a particularly powerful tool that poets utilize to make their works more vivid and lively. Particularly, imagery can be done through a variety of means such as personification. Personification is the giving of human traits and actions to nonhuman objects. For instance, in Ozymandias, Shelly uses personification to paint a vivid image of the stone remains of a statue. Shelly describes the statue as having a "sneer of cold command", an image that gives a vivid image of the king described before his eventual death.

Blog #5: Sound

Sound in poetry is effective tool in conveying emotion and tone. Similar to how a movie uses a soundtrack to emphasized how emotion an emotion conveyed in a scene, poetry uses the sound of words and phrases in order to effectively convey emotion and imagery. For example, in Out Out Robert Frost uses sound and alliteration to convey the grim emotion of the. Using words with an "s" sound like saw and supper, Frost effectively conveys an image a saw buzzing. This sound makes the reader rightfully uneasy as the boy later meets a grim death at the blade of a buzz saw.

Blog #4: Symbolism

Symbolism is a key element in conveying a theme in a story and thus is effective in evoking emotion within the reader. One way in which symbolism does this is by reducing the amount of exposition in conveying an idea or premise. For example in the poem Ozymandias,  the poet is able to convey emotion and theme without being obvious and direct like exposition. Symbols can convey ideas and emotions in an artistic and poetic manner that enhances the story without being condescending to the reader.

Essay Review for Hamlet

Overall I felt like I did alright with this essay but there are definitely a lot of improvements I can make to strengthen this type of writing. First and foremost, my quotes tended to be strong but I didn't give nearly enough specific analysis about them with quotes of specific words and phrases. I give a general overview and analysis of the quote but my essay would be much better if I chose to hone in and take apart the quote by quote. Part of the reason I didn't do this was because of my second problem. My quotes were most definitely too long and drawn out. I need to pick particular sentence or phrase out of the quote and give more analysis on it rather than putting overbearing amounts of quoted material into my paper. Overall, the largest pressing problem with my writing is that I pick broad quotes and as a result give broad analysis of them. I need to focus in and pick a small section to pick apart and truly analysis in depth.